Written by Liz Gannes
Posted Monday, March 24, 2008 at 6:00 AM PT

 

IBeatYou Takes Star Power to the Court

Someone alert Henny Penny and Turkey Lurkey; the sky is definitely falling. Celebrities are coming in droves to create their own social networks! From Barack Obama to Bode Miller to MC Hammer, and starting Monday a star NBA player and his Hollywood and Silicon Valley buddies. IBeatYou, an online platform for competition, was founded late last year by Golden State Warriors guard Baron Davis, two of his childhood friends, and a couple of venture capitalists. The site is meant to encourage everyone, including celebrities, to start video, photo, or text competitions, anything from most free throws in a minute (captured on video) to best smile (captured in a picture).

“I understand why DanceJam would want to go to MC Hammer — he’s the best dancer in the world — but one of the things we want to do is take celebs out of their comfort zone. We’ve got Steve Nash playing soccer, we’ve got Baron doing webcam karaoke, we’ve got Jessica [Alba] doing lipsync,” said IBeatYou co-founder Cash Warren, a businessman and movie producer who has been friends with Davis since age 11 and is also Alba’s fiancee (you can see her lipsyncing in the video embedded at the end of this post). Other NBA stars like Nash, the two-time league MVP, and the blogging phenom Gilbert Arenas are also involved.

Davis admits he’s not really in this for the money; his day job pays pretty well (I’m not kidding; he makes $16 million per year).

“It’s a way to not have that media influence, so I can really dictate to people who I am, the lighter side of my personality,” Davis said in a phone interview. I coincidentally happened to attending a Warriors home game the next night (full disclosure, I’m a fan) so I was able to catch him afterwards for a video interview, embedded above. “This is the one place where I can just be Baron Davis or Boom Dizzle (his nickname and screenname). The fans are moreso like friends in the competition.”

Starry eyes aside, I think IBeatYou could play an interesting role in the increasing opportunities for celebrities to wrest control of their images even as they are increasingly scrutinized. It’s different than Britney Spears posing for the paparazzi and commenting on their site in the wee hours of the morning. And it’s different than having a blog where you talk about how cool you are and your fans write in to tell you they love you. On IBeatYou, there’s actually a point, a reason for stars and fans alike to interact.

The pre-launch site is intimate; as he mentioned in the video, Baron was ranked 193 out of about 4,000 members when we talked to him (he’s currently down to number 211). I’m not sure this can continue as the site grows, especially considering the user interface is not really that great.

But I do think the idea of casual competition could be bigger than just the celebrity angle. And IBeatYou knows it has to make that true. “At the end of the day if people are only coming to the site to view the celebrities, that’s not a good value proposition,” said CEO Abdul Khan, formerly a VC at Crosslink Capital who made investments in web startups like Pandora, Omniture, and Ancestry.com. Davis’ take? “For the regular every day person, IBeatYou gives you the opportunity to be seen and be heard of. In this space they’re numero uno.”

IBeatYou has raised under $1 million in seed funding from Prism VentureWorks, individuals at Crosslink, Davis, and football legend Ronnie Lott. The team (minus Davis, who’s busy trying to secure a playoff berth) and some of its alpha testers filmed an office lip dub last weekend, which they’re posting as the first entrant in a new “group lip dub” competition tonight. Check it out:

 

Sphere
Topic: Startups
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Comments & Trackbacks

  1. [...] Sure things are not quite as crazy as 2000, but I am of the belief that history does repeat itself. Liz writes about IBeatYou, a video-social network-contest site being started by Baron Davis of NBA team, Golden [...]

    Another Celebrity Launches Video Site! Is The End Near? - GigaOM on March 24th, 2008 at 6:02 am - Permalink

  2. [...] Jump to Comments A new website launches today called IBeatYou.  NewTeeVee has a pretty solid overview of the site, which is basically a video site that encourages any and all sorts of [...]

    We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Profit « MyMediaMusings on March 24th, 2008 at 9:22 am - Permalink

  3. [...] From NewTeeVee : http://newteevee.com/2008/03/24/ibeatyou/ [...]

    RealityCrunch » IBeatYou - What’s In A Name? on March 24th, 2008 at 10:05 am - Permalink

  4. [...] NBA’s Baron Davis starts a social networking site - The site is meant to encourage everyone, including celebrities, to start video, photo, or text competitions. [...]

      Link Roundup for March 25, 2008 by Fantasy Sports 2.0 on March 25th, 2008 at 1:07 pm - Permalink

  5. [...] NBA’s Baron Davis starts a social networking site - The site is meant to encourage everyone, including celebrities, to start video, photo, or text competitions. [...]

    Log Cabins,Domy z bali,Domy z bala,Domy drewniane z bali www.domy-z-bali.org » Blog Archive » [Fantasy Sports 2.0] Link Roundup for March 25, 2008 on March 25th, 2008 at 2:27 pm - Permalink

  6. [...] NBA’s Baron Davis starts a social networking site - The site is meant to encourage everyone, including celebrities, to start video, photo, or text competitions. [...]

    Sporty Zimowe Letnie » Blog Archive » [Fantasy Sports 2.0] Link Roundup for March 25, 2008 on March 25th, 2008 at 6:17 pm - Permalink

  7. [...] things are not quite as crazy as 2000, but I am of the belief that history does repeat itself. Liz writes about IBeatYou, a video/social network/contest site being started by Baron Davis of the NBA’s Golden [...]

    racetalkblog.com » Baron Davis and “$” Warren (With PR Help from Jessica Alba): Launch a Startup on March 27th, 2008 at 8:59 am - Permalink

  8. After reading your entry i visited ibeatyou.com and found it fun and addictive! I entered a few competitions (some against Jessica Alba herself) and check on them daily. Thanks for the reccomendation!

    Rebecca on March 27th, 2008 at 11:58 am - Permalink

  9. holy crap is this site entertaining, I am very close to giving baron davis a beatdown.

    Jack on March 30th, 2008 at 8:27 pm - Permalink

  10. ahah this site is so sick, i was a little hesitant about it at first but it is really entertaining.

    chase on March 31st, 2008 at 1:23 pm - Permalink

  11. And now we can compete on ibeatyou via Facebook: http://apps.facebook.com/ibeatyou/

    Yippee!!!!

    Pavnik on April 1st, 2008 at 1:35 pm - Permalink

  12. this site is sooo addicting! you actually get to see and compete against candid shots of celebrities alongside other users, how cool is that?

    jane on April 2nd, 2008 at 11:32 pm - Permalink

  13. [...] you really like competitions and you want to build up your ego, you can compete in a site with anyone you want, including famous stars.  Jessica Alba also joined one of the contests there. Talk about big time! So, are you in for the [...]

    Rocking the world with your skills « Always fetching my muses on April 15th, 2008 at 1:10 am - Permalink

  14. [...] that isn’t YouTube or Facebook? Or an existing competitive social network like iBeatYou (our coverage)? Well, we have just the thing: Strutta, launching in beta on Thursday (click on the thumbnail for [...]

    Strutta: Video Competitions, But for What « NewTeeVee on April 15th, 2008 at 5:00 am - Permalink

  15. [...] head-to-head video space is heating up with sites like IBeatYou, DanceJam and Strutta (which was inspired by Judge Judy), all giving people the chance to humiliate [...]

    Power to The People’s Court Online « NewTeeVee on April 29th, 2008 at 1:15 pm - Permalink

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